By Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
In 1990, I ran the New York Marathon on a sunny day in November with the temperature at 78 degrees. It was my first marathon and I suspect it will be my last.
My friend, Frank, whom I trained for more than a year, and I got up against the back of the package with more than 20,000 runners on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano bridge.
Our goal was to finish, and in one day as hot as we were convinced we could finish, but not sure we could achieve our goal in less than six hours.
When the cannon to start the race was fired, we really couldn’t move at all because so many people were ahead of us. In fact, we couldn’t move for ten minutes and at that time we hardly went.
Eventually, we started jogging and establishing a pace for ourselves that enabled both of us to finish. I had a heat math and missed a wedding I was going to attend that night.
Along the way, we saw a lot of people who as soon as they could jog began to sprint wild, and we could see had not trained to run the 26 miles 385 meters from this marathon, so much less running it on such a hot day. Sprint, when they should have gone, they wasted a huge amount of energy unnecessarily.
Job hunting is rarely a sprint. Especially for professionals in the middle and senior levels, it is more like a marathon. Too often people hear the cannon go off and the race begins, and they smash around wild, wasting energy that the people did in my marathon and then fight for too long.
They are poorly prepared, have failed to train adequately, and as a result is forced to settle for a job that is “less than” what they could have achieved if they had taken some time to prepare for a longer race.
It’s not enough to have “a positive attitude” … even if a positive attitude is good to have. After five or six times, when you are not called back to other interviews, being positive in the light of conflicting information (lots of refusal) is crazy about yourself. You need help!
Be honest with yourself. Need help?
A job search coach can make a world of difference by correcting your mistakes and focusing you on productive things to do. When I launched jobsearch.community, I saw how many people acted as amateurs in their search, but thought they were benefits.
After all, I pointed out in “Job Hunting and 10,000 Hours Rule”, how many hours of experience do you have writing for resumes?
Network?
Promote yourself on LinkedIn?
Interviewing?
The list is huge for the skills needed to find a job and they are different than the skills needed to do a job.
As a friend recently learned when he was suddenly dismissed without warning, he knew how to do his job, but did not know how to create a different job search campaign than answer ads online.
Does it sound well known?
Can you use encouragement?
Join www.jobsearch.community for good advice and personal attention to help you avoid making expensive rookie errors.
© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2016, 2025
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About Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
People hire Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter to give no BS Job Search -Coaching and Career Counseling globally because he is doing job search
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You will find good info and job search coaching to help with your job search at jobseearch.community
Connect to LinkedIn: https: //www.linkedin.com/in/thebiggamehunter
Plan a discovery call to talk to me about one-to-one or group trainer during your job search at Www.thebiggamehunter.us.
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He hosts “No BS Job Search Advice Radio”, # 1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 3000 episodes over 13 years.
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